Friday, August 31, 2012

Solving A Mystery In The Dark (W/Photos)

Today’s post is kind of dumb, especially for what I think of as a “Friday” post, but it gives me a chance to talk a little about how I’ve been feeling lately and it relates a little to an older post and I’ve got a couple of photographs for illustrations and I get to use the word “dirigible” again so, dumb or not, I’m going to do this post.

I’ve been feeling under-the-weather a lot lately. I think it’s a combination of different kinds of allergies. I’ve been eating some food that has wheat products. And it’s the change of seasons around here so leaves are falling and there might be a high mold count or something. Anyway, some days my sinuses really ache. Other days I believe my left or right TMJ seems to swell up a little and pinches a nerve in the side of my jaw. Or something like that. So I’ve been feeling under-the-weather a lot lately.

I haven’t had any attacks or anything. And Benadryl always clears up whatever issue I sense might be coming on.

However, every now and then from either the sinus issues or the Benadryl I just lay down and doze off and I sleep so deeply that when I wake up there is sometimes a moment of, “What? What time is it? What day is it? Is it day or night?”

One time I fell asleep early in the evening with the TV on. I was just lying on my bed, fully dressed, with the bedspread still on under me and everything in place. I just laid down and dozed off.

When I woke up it was dark outside and the TV was still on (playing some Smallville DVD) but in the darkness of my room I looked to the left and I saw glowing letters up near the ceiling.

It was as if there was a blimp or dirigible overhead advertising with bright white lights.

I had fallen asleep with my glasses on so when I opened my eyes not only could I see the strange glowing letters overhead but I could read them. They said: “SONY”

So I laid there thinking, “What the hell is that?”

The TV was on the other side of the room. I don’t even own any other SONY products I could think of offhand. So I couldn’t figure out what the glowing letters were.

But I thought the letters looked picturesque and I wondered if I’d be able to capture the oddness of the moment with my camera. So still not knowing what the letters were, I reached to the other side of my bed and grabbed my camera. In the dark, I switched on my camera and pushed the knob that extended the zoom lens a little.

I tried to frame the glowing letters but my modern gadget camera doesn’t have manual focus so lying there in the dark I had to press the shutter button halfway to make the camera try to focus. Then, sure enough, I captured the four letters glowing somehow up near the ceiling of my room.

(It really does look like lettering on the side of a blimp, doesn’t it? I mean, if I had heard dirigible motors humming I might have tripped off into some kind fugue state.)

I still couldn’t figure out what the hell it was. So I sat up on the other side of my bed and switched on the table lamp.

When I looked back I immediately knew what it was.

The headphones I use when I play my keyboard late at night were up on the highest shelf of the bookcase against the wall. The raised silver brand letters were catching light from the television and reflecting it, glowing, like advertising letters on a blimp or dirigible up in the sky.

See:

It was a mystery in the dark. But it was a reasonably easy mystery to solve. (Too bad all mysteries in the dark aren’t that easy to solve!)

I wish I had more for a Friday and for the end of the month. But I don’t. Next week I hope to have a stop-motion movie, but it all depends on how I’m feeling. And a couple of days ago I updated the operating system on my “Beautiful Impossible Math Thing.” It’s still impossibly complicated but I can’t seem to give up trying to learn to use it. At some point I’ll say more about that. And I believe I’ve discovered an interesting way to interface my guitar to my keyboard even though my guitar is not a MIDI-equipped guitar. At some point I’ll say more about that.